


Feet Firmly Planted

by killFee



Category: Brave (2012), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of The Brave Tangled Dragons - Fandom, Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killFee/pseuds/killFee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you fall in, I'm not fishing you out," she says, and she means it. She'll let him drown, for a laugh.</p><p>Jack has always been able to fill any room, any person, with air. Just one of many annoying habits that got under her skin.</p><p>[College!au. Hic has asked Rapunzel out to a school party. Left out, Jack asks Merida out to an anti-party, where they blow off the festivities in favor of hanging around like bums.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feet Firmly Planted

 

 

"When you fall in, I'm not fishing you out," she says, and she means it. She'll let him drown, for a laugh.

Jack hoists himself up on the railing and bends his knees over it. He dangles freely over the breaking water like a worm on a hook. The river glints with streetlight and moonlight as tourists try to push against a steady flow of drunk students, around the rare patch of empty cobblestone overlooking the water to which Jack and Merida have laid claim. They're the same fish and litter here as anywhere else in the city, Merida insists, but Jack swears on his mother, and on your mother, he saw a turtle and by god he'll get a closer look. 

"Nghu-huh," says Jack back. Merida stares at his knobby knees, and munches on another fry out of Jack's fry-thing he's given her to hold. He's worn nice jeans tonight. If there's such a thing as nice jeans. She grins when she thinks of the look on Jack's face when he'd picked her up, and seen her - dumbfounded, he blurted out "Oh. You actually wore a dress." 

Jack in real life says suddenly, in a very similar tone: "...I have a headache."

"You are a headache. All your blood's gone south-"

"Still don't see any turtles," says he. She imagines his face flush with rushing blood, but his fingers white, his knuckles snowy powder on the rusted railing. She knows grip isn't a matter for him - his hands are as rough as hers, his callouses almost as big. Bigger. He can hold on all night if he cares to, and he's done dumber things in the past. He kicks his feet in the air like a child, like he isn't a slip away from being a short, embarrassing obituary. Merida thinks of all the tree branches she's proven to be strong enough to fit under her knees, and all the ones she hasn't, yet. There is room on the railing for two. She licks her lips, and tastes salt. Her makeup wore off a long time ago.

"Speaking of," she begins, rooting out a hard little crunchy runt of a fry and popping it into her mouth, "how's all that?"

"What - turtles?" 

"No - your head. Still a mess?" The words feel cruel coming out of her mouth. She doesn't mean them to, but where Hiccup speaks all over himself like a babbling brook, and Rapunzel sighs like a summer rain, Merida can sometimes lurch on like a bunch of rocks falling down on top of your head, big rocks that crush you and small rocks that bruise. Jack doesn't answer her, right away. She counts down the seconds until it's too awkward and too late to issue an apology, but Jack cuts her short.

"Oh yeah. I'm pretty much a human disaster." He sounds thirteen. He sounds three hundred. Merida knows sometimes sympathy and a delicate touch are called for, but her hands are calloused, and she prefers them that way - better grip - and so she says:

"We sold on 'human?'"

"Hey, I'm opening up to you emotionally, you jerk," he says, face still hidden, voice edged, but not that deep dark heavy water it was starting to sink down into. 

"Aye, sorry. Continue." The railing is starting to cut into her back, so she turns around and rests her elbows on the metal.

"Oh, you know. Mood swings, patchy memory - uh, well - no memory - handful of some pretty messed up dreams - brain problems. But, progress: sometimes I hate things less. I haven't yelled at the sky with my fists in the air in like, a few weeks."

"Hey! That's pretty good," she said, bright like a flash pot.

"I thought so!" He kicks his feet a bit more, and for not the first time that evening, Merida stares at his ridiculous toes. Sandals, dead of winter. Who thinks formal wear means sandals? Who thinks formal wear means combat boots, says her mother's voice in her head. Shitkickers, mum, Merida corrects mentally, then squishes the empty fry container in her hands. She chucks it in a nearby bin and wipes one greasy hand on her dress. It did its job, all pretty and gathered around her hips. More than it rightly ought to have expected in her company.

"Still got that headache?"

"Well you're still here, aren't you-"

"You can't just recycle my joke from earlier!" She grouses, leaning over to more properly scold him. Her hair tumbles over her shoulder and over the water, a curtain of fire and a mess around her face that even for the majesty and pomp of some dumb dance won't be tamed. She can see the jut of Jack's chin, his adam's apple and his skinny neck, thin enough for her hands to fit nicely around. His hood falls around his ears and his jacket pulls at his shoulders. Her hands can fit there, too.

"Hey, what about your headache, missy?" He asks her suddenly. Merida straightens a measured amount. 

Rapunzel looks like afternoon sunlight through stained glass when she answers the door, flowers in her hair, eyes glittering. Hiccup has a golden blossom in his lapel and he's combed his hair and then combed it again when the first go didn't take and his nose is red in embarrassment and Merida remembers the wave goodbye he offers her as he gives Rapunzel his arm and escorts her out, face flushing, handsome, and gone. 

She chews on her lip and casts her eyes on the water. It flows on, flecked with moonlight and trash, indifferent to either. 

"I dinnae what you're talking about." Merida pulls her jacket tight around herself and flows on.

"You know, there's nothing wrong with having regular old - hngg - girly - nnuh-" he trails off into odd grunts. Merida bothers to look at him and sees his chicken legs wobbling a little. Like a jaded mother, she lets him explain himself. It comes as she expects:

"I'm stuck." 

Her eyes roll out of her skull and she drags her hand over her face even as the corners of her mouth tuck up into her cheeks. 

"You daft thing," she says, earlier threat forgotten, _I told you so_ implicit. "Come on, come on." She plants herself in front of him and grabs his hand. He's heavier than she expects, and she scolds herself when she grunts embarrassingly on the first failed effort. Jack may be not much more than a beanpole that learned to be annoying, but there's lean muscle under all that paper skin, and on Merida's second tug, he almost pulls her back over the ledge with him. Jack bitches and moans.

"Geeze, Red! I thought you were supposed to be all tough and strong and everyth- _ah!_ " Merida plants her boots against the railing and pulls. Jack comes up and over in a big ungangly arc and Merida finds herself with an armful of boy. She catches them both before they topple onto the cobblestone but it's an awkward affair - he's got some of her hair in his mouth, and his heartbeat is against her cheek. Her arms fall to around his waist as they right themselves, both their feet on the ground, his bony hip pressing into her wrists.

"Graceful!" she says, as he spits out her hair. Her feet don't seem to touch the earth. Her chest is tight. It loosens when he lets her go, and she feels grounded again. Jack has always been able to fill any room, any person, with air. Just one of many annoying habits that got under her skin. People swim past them on the street, unaffected.

Jack clears his throat and falls into that practiced cool-guy lean that doesn't fool anyone who's held a conversation with him. Certainly not Merida, who purses her lips, and digs her heels into the ground. "Coulda died there," she says, unnecessarily, but she can't help it.

"But I didn't." he says, "I knew you'd rescue me from whatever stupid thing I do. It's why I brought you along." He flashes her a grin of straight white teeth and she can't help it, she laughs. 

"Not everything you do is stupid." She pulls her jacket tight around her shoulders when a chill wind blows by, and Jack takes a step closer to her.

"Hey," he says in a snow bright voice, slinging an arm around her shoulder. She admires the leather cuff around his wrist, and without thinking runs her fingers along the embossed design and the brass buckle. Hidden behind her mass of curls, Jack carefully pays no attention. "This place is dead. Crash at my place? I'll sing you to sleep with the sweet sweet sounds of utterly _ruining_ your shit in Mario Kart-"

"You are a _fucking cheater_ and you will _always be a cheater-_ " she spits, instantly furious, and lets him push her down the street.

 

-

 

He does ruin her shit, and ruins Hiccup's and Rapunzel's too when they finally come home, tired and happy, and when they all fall asleep strewn across the couch and floor, Jack has a couple more bruises courtesy of Merida and she has a brown leather cuff loose around her wrist and Jack's heartbeat on her cheek.

 

 


End file.
